LAST week we highlighted that though antenatal care, delivery, and post-natal care for mother and child are free in public health facilities, some mothers choose to have their babies in private or semi-private hospitals, as they believe the hospital fees are but a small price to pay for their babies’ big début into the world. Others would have heard horror stories from women who used the public system that may have made them think that going private was the way to go, no matter the expense.

But most Jamaican babies’ first glimpse of the world is in a public hospital, and whether because of the proximity to home, the high cost of delivering privately, or sheer preference, most women choose to go the public route when having a baby. And according to a few of these women we spoke to, while they entered with trepidation, they soon realised that going public was not so bad after all.

 

CK, Spanish Town Hospital:

I’m not going to say it was an awful experience, because it was OK. The doctors and nurses were not all friendly, but at least they were all professional, and that’s fine by me. There was a woman in early labour who was shouting and using expletives the whole time. She kept calling the nurses and doctors just to tell them that her tummy hurt. She annoyed them, and so they got short-tempered with her. I don’t blame them. I was annoyed too. I slept on the suturing bed the night after delivery because shortly after I had my baby and was to be stitched up, someone needed to have an emergency C-section done, and they went to attend to her. Then shifts changed and they somehow forgot about me. It hurt to get the stitches the next morning after I was swollen shut, but I understand that they are short-staffed and things happen sometimes. My baby and I were healthy and that’s all that mattered.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/all-woman/delivering-at-public-hospitals-not-so-bad-after-all_148637